Experiments show that too much of a form of vitamin B3—nicotinamide—that is produced naturally inside of cells can lead to cell death in certain sensory cells and cause behavioral changes in the worm, Caenorhabditis elegans. ...

Researchers have analysed data that reveals which plane crashes the public is interested in and why. They counted the number of page views and edits of Wikipedia articles about 1,500 plane crashes around the world to discover ...

Physicists at The University of Texas at Arlington have shown that using microwaves to activate photosensitive nanoparticles produces tissue-heating effects that ultimately lead to cell death within solid tumors.

Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, plays a central role in the maintenance of human health by providing a line of defense against unrestricted cell growth that occurs in many cancers and AIDS as well as in neurodegenerative ...

The World Bank is indirectly financing a boom in some of Asia's dirtiest coal-fired power generation despite commitments to end most funding for the sector, a development advocacy group charged on Monday.

Biologists at The University of Texas at Arlington have demonstrated that removing water molecules can deactivate caspase-3 enzymes, which opens new doors for treatment of autoimmune diseases like arthritis, which have been ...

Beginning in 2008, Volkswagen installed software to circumvent emissions testing by turning off the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions control system in real-world driving in nearly half a million cars. A new analysis using ...

Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that define a living organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that results thereby. The true nature of the latter has for millennia been a central concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical enquiry. Many religions maintain faith in either some kind of afterlife or reincarnation. The effect of physical death on any possible mind or soul remains for many an open question.

Animals almost without exception (see hydra) die in due course from senescence. Intervening phenomena which commonly bring death earlier include malnutrition, predation, disease, accidents resulting in terminal physical injury, or, in extreme circumstances, grave ecosystem disruption. Intentional human activity causing death includes suicide, homicide, and war. Roughly 150,000 people die each day across the globe. Death in the natural world can also occur as an indirect result of human activity: an increasing cause of species depletion in recent times has been destruction of ecological systems as a consequence of the widening spread of industrial technology.

Death in this context is now seen as less an event than a process: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible. Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. Precise medical definition of death, in other words, becomes more problematic, paradoxically, as scientific knowledge and technology advance.